Midwest Mafia Bulletin: Detroit & Chicago

Almost three years after being federally indicted on racketeering and extortion charges and the enduring of a heap of motions, legal briefs and continuances, Detroit mobster big shots and brothers, Giuseppe (Joe the Hood) D’Anna and Girolamo (Mimmo) D’Anna, will finally go to trial this fall.

The Sicilian-born D’Annas are scheduled to begin trial in the second week of October, both facing up to 20 years in prison for the brutal 2011 near-death beating of Pietro Ventilmiglia, a business rival of theirs, in an attempt to force him to shutter his tiny eatery, Nonna’s Italian Kitchen, which sat across the street from Joe the Hood’s east suburban Detroit headquarters, Tirami Su Ristorante, in Shelby Township. They were charged with attempted murder by the state of Michigan in 2011 for the same incident, however controversial plea deals and sentences landed them mere slaps on the wrist and less than three months in jail, with the rest of their time spent on home-confinement. Unhappy with the outcome of the state case, the feds decided to get in on the action themselves and brought charges of their own in February 2013.

Joe the Hood, 62, is a reputed powerful capo in the Detroit mafia, said to head the Family’s “Zip” faction. Mimmo, 51, is an alleged soldier and holds court daily at his Café Italia social club, an establishment he co-runs with fellow local Goodfella Peter (Fat Pete) Corrado. Moving to the U.S., depending on who you ask, either in the late-1980s or early-1990s, the D’Annas are nephews of deceased Motor City mob captain Anthony (Tony Cars) D’Anna – in charge of syndicate affairs in the auto industry, died in 1984 – and the first-cousin of Salvatore D’Anna, a Godfather in their native Sicily.

Ventilmiglia, a native Sicilian himself, opened up Nonna’s Kitchen in 2009 and repeatedly rebuffed the D’Annas’ shakedown attempts to have him pay a street tax to operate his business. The stubborn civilian was beaten to a pulp in April 2011, attacked by the D’Annas and struck a dozen times with a wooden baseball bat in front of a spattering of horrified onlookers inside his restaurant. Standing over his victim’s battered body, Joe D’Anna threatened to kill him and his family back in Sicily if he didn’t close up shop immediately. Sustaining a cracked skull, several cracked ribs, a broken arm, collar bone and sternum, Ventilmiglia was hospitalized for close to a month recovering from his injuries.

Alleged high-ranking Chicago mafia associate Michael (Mickey D) Davis, a close friend and sometime-chauffer and bodyguard to reputed Outfit acting boss Salvatore (Solly D) DeLaurentis, began trial in federal court last week on charges that he hired Windy City wiseguy Paul Carparelli to break the legs of a man who owed him money.

The cherubic 44-year old Carparelli, like Davis, also reportedly a lieutenant under DeLaurentis, pled guilty to federal extortion charges in May. According to Davis’ indictment, Davis loaned a man from Melrose Park $300,000 to start a used-car dealership and when the debt went unpaid, he offered Carparelli $10,000 to deliver the bone-cracking attack that never took place due to an underling of Carparelli’s being an FBI informant and his tip-off leading to the feds being able to thwart it.

Per the indictment, Davis, 55, loaned the man the money in 2011. When it wasn’t repaid by 2013, Davis began applying pressure and using intimidation tactics – repeated phone calls, harassing voice messages and a face-to-face verbal altercation where Davis allegedly threatened his wife and children. Eventually, the man forked over his car dealership and Davis “busted it out,” sharking in on the business by opening lines of credit, racking up large bills without any intention of paying until the place shut down.

DeLaurentis, 76, took over as acting boss-street boss of the Chicago mafia sometime in 2013, accepting the reins from an imprisoned Michael (Fat Mike) Sarno. Longtime Outfit don John (Johnny No Nose) DiFronzo is in semi-retirement. With DiFronzo stepping away in recent years, the power in the crime family as shifted from No Nose’s Elmwood Park crew to the seasoned mob-hotbed territory of Cicero, where Solly D DeLaurentis , Mickey D Davis and Paul Carparelli spawn from, specifically the Lake County branch. In Carparelli’s case, FBI wiretap evidence was proffered in pre-trial motions hearing Carparelli tell his wired-for-sound strong-arm (George Brown) that Solly and Mickey D “paid him 10k to throw some guy a beating.”